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The Christ-force

This article appeared in White Crane
Journal #39, Winter 1998/99

In the Introduction to The
Essential Gay Mystics, Andrew Harvey writes
of the mystical experience as “a direct and naked perception of
Godhead, beyond dogma, beyond ideas, beyond any possible formulation in
words of any kind.” There is a tradition of such mystical seekers,
Harvey says, and a surprisingly large number of them were gay.
Surprising, he says, because nearly all the established religions
condemn homosexuality and say that homosexuals are without spiritual
life. In fact, as we know, the truth is diametrically opposite.

Harvey argues that the homophobia that generates this error is purely
human and relatively recent, not of age-old divine ordination. And,
indeed, this homophobia is destructive to religion. For it is part of
the mindset that creates the polarization of male and female and deters
most men and women from allowing themselves the so-called “mystical
marriage” of male and female in the soul. Straight men, especially,
resist allowing their feminine traits to develop. And we’ve ended up
with a “male-centered, male-dominated, competitive, exploitative,
war-and-power obsessed mentality.”

But there is a transformation underway—a “birth into a wholly new
cosmic consciousness” — that is signified (and realized) by the return
of the Sacred Feminine. The salvation of the human race depends on this
transformation in which the intense polarizations of current human
consciousness are transcended. Gay people demonstrate the blending of
male and female traits and virtues. Perhaps more importantly, the
struggle of gay people to end homophobia works to relax one of the
major inhibitions human beings have to the merging of male and female.
(Straight people are, after all, the most severely
damaged by homophobia. Gay people work on themselves to get over it—and
sometimes achieve greatness of soul in the process. Straight people
suffer without even knowing it, fearful of their sexuality and trapped
in the polarizations, angry at gay people onto whom they project all
their own discomfort and anxiety about sex.)

This transformation goes on at a mystical level. Harvey calls for
seekers, gay and straight, to overcome homophobia and to practice a
tantric sexuality that honors incarnation in flesh and celebrates—and
ritualizes—the merging of male and female, body and spirit. The
mystical practice radiates divine passion and divine energy and helps
propel the world toward ongoing transformation in the Divine Mother.

In
his Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ, Harvey
demonstrates the kind of work and world transformation he has called
gay people to perform. Son of Man is not a gay book as such,
but it clearly exemplifies the enlightened, mystical message that comes
from the mystical marriage in the gay soul. For Son of Man is a
sensible, modern explication of the life and teachings of Jesus free of
the usual self-serving spin the Christian Churches give the story.

Choosing the term Jesus is said to have used for himself, “Son of Man,”
not “Son of God,” Harvey presents Jesus as an accomplished mystical
seeker who saw into the nature of Divinity and achieved miraculous
healing abilities and yogic-like powers.Most of all, though, he saw
into the human heart. He saw that the proper basis of morality was not
obedience to Law but love and compassion. He was a revolutionary who
called for a total overthrow of the social and religious culture of his
day. He championed the plight of women in the face of rigid patriarchy.
He dismissed riches as a sign of divine election. He ridiculed
thepriests and religious authorities. He called for a utopian world
born from love of neighbor and mystical vision of the Kingdom.

Beyond calling for a reunderstanding and reclaiming of the story of
Jesus, Harvey also calls for a reappreciation of the image of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. Rather than being just a pious
example of maternal asexuality, Mary is the manifestation in Christian
tradition of the Sacred Feminine. Surprisingly, it is through her that
Harvey says sacred sex should be practiced.

Andrew Harvey is a passionate spokesman for the mystical vision. His
own personality manifests a fascination with the Transcendent Reality
and the energy and obsession such a vision generates. His reassessment
of Jesus and the Christian myth should be read by every gay man
interested in spiritual vision.

Any
couple who consecrates
their love to Mary and Jesus will find that the Christ-fire enters and
irradiates their lovemaking at every level. And this is not
metaphor. The “green fire” of the Holy Spirit, what Hildegard of
Bingen described as “viriditas,” is nakedly visible when pure love is
present, and its effects are palpable at every level: physically, in
healing the pains and awkwardness of the body, those places where false
shame and guilt have hidden for decades; emotionally, in revealing the
all-encompassing dance of love in the universe; and spiritually, in
slowly but astoundingly birthing both partners in to the beginnings of
Christ-consciousness.

What happens in the consecration of sexuality to Christ is that its
essential Christ-heat is released. The Christ-heat that is the
outstreaming of the completely open Sacred Heart and also the secret,
life-sustaining energy of the body is now made alive, vivid, ecstatic,
and above all conscious. It is seen and known as one force, one
central,
sacred, directly initiatory force that has no divisions or boundaries,
and springs and flows and streams always from the Father-Mother. The
aim of Tantra of Christ is to awaken this Christ-force, the force of
divine human love, and to permeate and saturate consciousness and
ordinary life with it, and so grow the “love body” spiritually,
physically, and practically.

The restoration in the Mother of the tantric aspect of the Christ-force
will permanently dissolve the hysterical body-hatred of the Christian
tradition as it has developed. Consecrated human love will become Holy
Communion, and Christ’s words, “Take, eat. This is is my Body,” will
reveal another dimension of miracle. (Son of Man, p 190)

Toby Johnson, PhDis
author of nine books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of
his
teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and
religious problems, four gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual
issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's
spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality and editor
of a collection of "myths" of gay men's consciousness.

Johnson's book
GAY
SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of
Human Consciousness won a Lambda Literary Award in 2000.

His GAY
PERSPECTIVE: Things Our [Homo]sexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe was nominated for a Lammy in 2003. They
remain
in
print.

FINDING
YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth
of the Great Secret III tells the story of Johnson's learning the
real nature of religion and myth and discovering the spiritual
qualities of gay male consciousness.